In a local exchange area, a carrier has subscribers for various classes of services for one or more telephone numbers. These telephone numbers correlate to accounts with the local exchange carrier (LEC) to which the LEC bills the subscription services. Also installed within the LEC area are public pay phones or stations that are owned by PSPs. Service to these telephones is provided on a per call basis with the charges being paid by the user of the telephone.
When a direct dialed call placed from a telephone located within an LEC service area is made to a destination number that is outside the LEC service area, the call is routed through one or more carriers to the destination number. For example, a long distance telephone call requires the call to be transferred from the LEC to a long distance carrier which may transfer the call to one or more intervening long distance carriers before it is transferred to the LEC servicing the destination number. At each transfer, the carrier providing the telephone call does so in accordance with the terms of a contractual arrangement with the carrier to which the call is being transferred. The charges for transporting the call to the next carrier are accumulated and billed by each carrier to the next long distance carrier and eventually to the long distance carrier selected by the subscriber of the originating number. The originating number is passed from the LEC servicing the originating number to the first long distance carrier transporting the call at the time of the transfer of the call. Typically, the long distance carrier verifies the existence of an account corresponding to the originating number by querying a customer account database for the long distance carrier. The customer account database for a carrier is typically a proprietary database maintained by the carrier.
The transfer and billing arrangements for toll-free calls differ in some respects from that presented above. Toll-free calls are calls placed to telephone numbers currently having an area code of 800, 888 or 877. The Industry Numbering Committee (INC) has reserved the remaining 8XX (822, 833 . . . 866) codes for future toll-free service. One difference arises from the fact that toll-free calls are billed to the destination number--not the originating number. Another difference of toll-free calls is that toll-free numbers are "virtual" numbers. That is, the toll-free number actually maps to a destination number within some LEC service area. When a user enters a destination number that is a toll-free number, the call is delivered to a Service Switching Point (SSP) switch. An SSP is a telecommunications switch that is enabled by software to utilize the features and protocol of Signaling System 7 (SS7) to process calls delivered to it.
SS7 is an out-of-band signaling system that separates call transport from its routing. SS7 uses database queries to establish and maintain call routing information and special features. Signaling Transfer Points (STPs) are routing components in the SS7 network that support this out-of-band capability and route messages between different components in the network, such as SSPs and Service Control Points (SCPs). SCPs are computers within an SS7 network that provide telephone switches with call routing and other special processing instruction data. When a toll-free call is delivered to the SSP, the actual number to which the call will be routed is unknown to the SSP. The calls are processed with the responses from databases queried by the SSP to gather routing information and/or transport carrier identification data. To determine how to route the toll-free call, the SSP switch queries an SCP. The SCP responds with call routing data that identifies the transport carrier to which the call is to be transferred and the call is transferred by the SSP to the identified carrier's Point of Presence (POP) for that LEC.
The SSP at the long distance carrier which receives the toll-free call then queries an SCP which provides routing data needed to transport the call. This routing data may dictate transport to another carrier and may identify the destination number that corresponds to the toll-free number. The call is then routed as described above with the service charges for each carrier being accumulated and eventually billed to the responsible organization (Resp Org) for the destination number.
In this scenario, the LEC servicing the area from which the toll-free call originated obtains identification of the carrier; but, does not necessarily obtain data specifically identifying the Resp Org.
In the process just described, the LEC has received data from the SCP identifying the toll-free number as dialed and the transport carrier to which the call is to be transferred. The carrier identified by the routing data may or may not be the Resp Org corresponding to the toll-free number. The SSP in the LEC service area in which the call originated, stores the dialed number and the initial carrier as part of a call detail record (CDR).
The SCPs receive the data for routing toll-free calls from a Service Management System 800 (SMS/800) which is an operations and administrative support system used for the generation and maintenance of toll-free routing information, known as customer records (CRs). Responsible Organizations (Resp Orgs) load new CRs and changes to existing CRs into the SMS/800. Resp Orgs are the businesses, typically telecommunication carriers, that are chosen by toll-free number customers (purchasers) to be responsible for maintaining their CRs in SMS/800. Periodically (currently at fifteen minute intervals), the SMS/800 database downloads CRs and CR changes into the databases of the SCPs. Various telecommunications carriers operating within the United States maintain mated pairs of SCPs, one as a primary and the other as a back-up. There are approximately twenty (20) such mated pairs of SCPs in the U.S. and Canada.
In 1996, the Federal Telecommunications Act (FTA) was passed. This act directed that PSPs are to receive compensation, Per Call Compensation (PCC), for toll-free calls originating from public pay telephones installed and operated by the PSP. Some of the largest PSPs are the pay phone provider businesses of the LECs (US West Public Access and Smart Card Division, Ameritech Pay Phone Services, etc.) This PCC charge is different than those passed along to the carrier to which the call is transferred because it is not a LEC charge, but a PSP charge. Consequently, it is not covered by the terms of the contract between the LEC and the carrier. Thus, PSPs now need to know the identity of the Resp Org so the PCC may be billed to the Resp Org that administers the toll-free number in the SMS/800 database. Likewise, this data may be used to audit the reported toll-free call count for a Resp Org. However, previously known transfer, CDR, call accounting, and billing systems for toll-free calls do not provide the identity of the Resp Org because the LEC and other carrier (network) SSP switches only obtained the routing information required for a toll-free call. Prior to the enactment of FTA, LECs processed toll-free calls placed from public pay telephones without determining the entity responsible for maintaining the toll-free number. Furthermore, the PSPs need to gather this information from a source that:
1. Is situated in the network such that it can detect the call; and
2. Is independent of the organization financially responsible to the PSP for PCC.
According to the FCC orders supporting execution of the FTA, each carrier is to pay PCC to the appropriate PSP within 110 days of each calendar quarter for calls occurring in that period. However, the Resp Org for a given toll-free number may change during that period. In order to accurately bill or audit PCC, a Resp Org responsible for a toll-free number at the time a call was placed must be correctly identified. Because the Resp Org identity for a toll-free number may change within the period that PCC accumulates for a toll-free number, the content of the SMS/800 database may also change within that period and PSPs are consequently not able to accurately determine, after the fact, the Resp Org responsible for a toll-free number at a particular time by querying SMS/800.
What is needed is a system that accurately identifies Resp Orgs responsible for toll-free calls, with date and time detail, so a PSP may bill and may audit the Resp Org for PCC on toll-free calls originated from public telephones.